Bioinformatics Info Session 3

Описание: For more information on our Bioinformatics programs, visit langara.ca/bioinformatics.

Medical and scientific experts have recently stressed the importance of physical distancing to help flatten COVID-19's curve. Limiting person-to-person contact is the best way to keep diseases from spreading. This was a common practice even before COVID-19. When someone has the flu, they are contagious and need to take steps to prevent others from getting the flu too.

It is usually obvious when someone has the flu. They display the usual symptoms – fever, cough, sore throat, fatigue, etc. However, this is not the case with COVID-19. Many patients diagnosed with COVID-19 have been completely asymptomatic, which means they probably did not know that they were exposing others to it.

Scientists are trying to figure out why some people are impacted by COVID-19, while others have it, but do not feel ill at all. Join our bioinformatics program team members, as they discuss how studying genetic data can lead to solving this mystery.

Optional reading:
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020...

Dr. Jessica Kalra is a cell and molecular biologist with a research interest in examining molecular markers of disease for the purposes of early diagnosis and personalized treatments of cancer. She is also a long-time instructor in Biology and Health Sciences and teaches a lecture on Pharmacogenomics at UBC. Dr. Kalra is also a program coordinator for Langara's Bioinformatics Program.

Ryan Zier-Vogel is a computer scientist with specialization in bioinformatics. His research interest is applying machine-learning algorithms to biological programs. He is an instructor and is also coordinating the new Bachelor of Science in Bioinformatics program at Langara College.